Pat and Diane Farla of Shropshire, England moved into their home three years ago and wondered what a rectangle in the floor represented. On Good Friday, they has a few drinks and decided to find out. They pulled the metal grid up and found a narrow tunnel which led to an underground chamber! The room held a wooden cross, brick seats along the wall, an open chest containing newspapers from the 1930s, and some hooks hanging from the ceiling. The Farlas also found a stairway leading back up to a cupboard in their dining room.

The Farla said the deeds of the detached house dated from 230 years ago and they believe that at some point it had been used as a pub.

Richard Westwood Brookes, historical documents expert for nearby Shropshire auctioneers Mullocks, said: 'If the deeds are over 230 years old and the room dates back to the 1700's, there's a chance it could have been used as a Catholic hideaway or for other nonconformist religious groups.

'There's a possibility a room like that could be used as a clandestine Catholic church as you couldn't be a Catholic during that time - you would be persecuted and executed.

'It may well have been a Catholic priest hole - but it all depends on what the age was.'

He added that if it had been built during World War II it could have been a type of bunker.

I've seen dozens like this, the benches are simply to raise food up from the floor. Anybody who works in the maintenance and alteration of 16th to mid 19th century houses in Britain will have seen cellars almost identical to this.Niches in the wall were for candles or lanterns, building style early to mid 1800s. In the area where I work, most of the older houses have cellars similar to this, raised slabs of stone for keeping meat, cheese, butter etc.In some larger cellars you'll find a big stone slab table in the middle of the room. These muppets, no doubt, would say that shows it was a black-magic crypt where beautiful virgins were sacrificed....